Madam Chair, I am glad we are having this important take note debate tonight. It is on a very important issue and it is very personal to thousands of people.
I was looking through material and research in preparation for tonight's debate. One thing I was interested to learn was there was a significant report from the health committee of Parliament in 1999. It made some recommendations and flowing from that, the Canadian Council for Donation and Transplantation was established in 2001.
Although some work has been done, we really have not made much progress on the establishment of a national coordinated strategy for donations and transplants. Although individual provinces have their own programs, we are lacking in that regard.
I do not know if the parliamentary secretary is familiar with that 1999 report, but it made a whole series of recommendations. The first one was a coordinated pan-Canadian strategy and high quality provincial-territorial strategies and then it went on from there.
Would the parliamentary secretary comment on whether he thinks we have made the progress that should have made since 2001 when this council was set up and what more could we do in that regard?